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Thursday, December 14, 2006

Comcast and American Service

We have a web site hosted by a very reliable company called Netfirms. We've been with this company for two years now and have had only two issues with them. When we contacted Netfirms with the problems they were resolved quickly and professionally. This is one reason why Netfirms has so many awards for hosting small businesses. I would never hesistate to recommend Netfirms as a web hosting company for this reason. This company knows what service means.

Then there's Comcast - the cable and internet service corporate monster taking over America. I didn't choose Comcast as an internet service provider; I started out with Adelphia. No matter where I lived - New Mexico, Florida, and now New Hampshire - I've had nothing but problems with them as has many friends and acquaintences. Shortly after moving to New Hampshire Comcast took over Adelphia. Surely Comcast works well somewhere in this country! Ummm, no. A friend in Florida has Comcast and she could never get her e-mails to us. Now that we have Comcast, we can't send e-mail to our web site addresses either. What does this mean? If you have Comcast as your internet service provider and you've been e-mailing businesses and haven't received replies from them, but bounce-back messages. Comcast is most likely the culprit.

When it was determined that even I couldn't send e-mail to our web site, I first contacted Netfirms. They checked their system, asked me to get some information from Comcast. I then contacted Comcast, who told me how to get the required information myself. They didn't check their server. Because Comcast sent me incorrect information the first time and a day or two had passed, Netfirms, on their own had double-checked that no blocks for @comcast.net ISPs were on their server. They then checked their server and discovered that Comcast ISP based e-mail got through intermittently. They tested their system.

I have yet to hear from Comcast regarding this issue with the latest round of gobble-de-gook. Will they, once again, give me information that can be found in their Help menu, or will they actually do the job they're paid to do and check their system for problems? I doubt it. Now, that's American Service in full corporate style!